It's like being caught in a bad dream!
Mike Scoles wrote:
"Linda M. Woolf" wrote:
> Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.
> The two are not rivals. They are complementary."
Well, no I did not write those words. They are the words of Dr. Martin
Luther King. I did however correctly attribute them to him and provided a
reference.
>
> This is from The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., selected by
> Coretta Scott King, Newmarket Press, 1984.
Mike continued:
> Are creation stories presented as facts or values?
Didn't see that in the above statement by MLK. Certainly, there are a
variety of creation tales told by a variety of religions. Two different
creation stories can be found in the book of Genesis. But do we really
want to start to go around the bend about fact/metaphor/etc. of this text?
>
>
> Many introductory psychology texts define psychology as, "The scientific
> study of behavior and mental processes." They also usually add that a
> goal of this enterprise is to improve the human condition. Is this
> valueless?
The definition of psychology presented above and the methods espoused as
scientific have just recently been argued as being solely for the purpose
of discovering the truth about external reality. And that the value is in
the correctness of those results. In terms of defining what is considered
moral (as related to the use of the term "values" by MLK), it has been
argued that this may conflict with the scientific. Are you really sure
that you want to begin to rehash the arguments of the past few days?
Personally, I wish I could say that I have seen that follow-up statement
made with any regularity. I wish that more of psychology would see the
value of applied psychology particularly in realms related to the human
condition beyond clinical.
Warm regards,
linda
--
linda m. woolf, ph.d.
associate professor - psychology
webster university
main webpage: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/
Holocaust and genocide studies pages:
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/holocaust.html
womens' pages: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html
gerontology pages: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gero.html
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
